Notre Dame-Michigan: Touring the Ruins of a Great Rivalry

By

John U. Bacon

Sept. 6, 2013 11:32 p.m. ET

In his new book "Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football" (Simon & Schuster), John U. Bacon spent a season tracking four Big Ten football programs—Michigan, Northwestern, Ohio State and Penn State. This excerpt, which is based on historical records, correspondence and several narrative accounts, including John Kryk's "Natural Enemies," looks at the Notre Dame-Michigan rivalry, which resumes Saturday in Ann Arbor and is set to end after next year's game.

Michigan and Notre Dame started going at it when they first met in 1887—by accident. The Michigan team was traveling to Evanston, Ill., to play Northwestern when it learned the Purple were backing out. So they got off the train at South Bend instead and literally taught the boys at Notre Dame the rules of the game.

ENLARGE

Notre Dame receiver TJ Jones and Michigan cornerback Raymon Taylor last year. The Notre Dame-Michigan series is set to end after next season
ASSOCIATED PRESS

After the Wolverines won that first contest, 8-0, Notre Dame treated their guests to a hearty banquet. The mood was so friendly that Notre Dame president Thomas Walsh felt compelled to give a toast, assuring the Michigan players that a "cordial reception would always await them at Notre Dame."

Promises, promises.

Notre Dame's relationship with the Big Ten Conference became complicated after coach Fielding Yost arrived at Michigan and a player named Knute Rockne enrolled at Notre Dame. In 1910, Yost accused Notre Dame of using ineligible players and cut the series off. On the various All-American teams that big-name coaches selected in 1913, only one coach left Rockne off his list—Yost.

Things got worse after Rockne became Notre Dame's coach in 1918, and then blew up beyond repair in 1923—at a track meet. Rockne got into a shouting match with Yost over the distance between the hurdles Michigan had set up. Yost vowed then and there that Notre Dame, which had desperately been trying to get into the Big Ten, would never be admitted.

The animosity between these two men continued at a fever pitch for the rest of their lives. When a Spalding salesman tried to get Rockne to order new equipment, Rockne kept repeating that he was already overstocked with everything he needed. Finally, just before turning to go, the clever salesman sighed and said that was a shame because Yost liked Spalding's new footballs so much he'd ordered three dozen. "He did?" Rockne snapped. "Then I'll take three dozen and a half."

The teams ended the embargo during World War II, when they split two games, before cutting off the series again.

Like all great rivalries, this one has outlived its originators. Michigan's Fritz Crisler didn't trust Notre Dame's Frank Leahy any more than Rockne trusted Yost. Pressed to explain why, Crisler cited this example: Whenever someone asked Leahy if he wanted a cigarette, he'd say yes, then just play with the thing without ever lighting it. "Why," Crisler asked, "doesn't he just say he doesn't smoke?"

For the next 35 years, from 1943 to 1978, the sport's two most legendary programs, situated just three hours apart, didn't play once—but once again, Notre Dame seemed to fare pretty well without the Wolverines, winning six national titles during that span.

But like all family squabbles, this one eventually started to soften. At a banquet in the late 1960s, Notre Dame athletic director Moose Krause leaned over to Don Canham, his Michigan counterpart, and said, "Don, Michigan and Notre Dame should be playing football."

After a few years of touchy negotiations, they relaunched the rivalry in 1978, and it was an immediate hit. It had everything college football fans loved: In addition to history and tension, there were classic uniforms and stadiums, and most importantly, unequaled parity.

The night before the rivalry restarted, Moose Krause said, "When we look back 25 years from today, we will probably see that Michigan won half of the games and Notre Dame won half of the games."

Going into Saturday's game, since Krause made his prediction, each side had beaten the other 14 times, with one tie.

The week before the 2012 Michigan game, Notre Dame had joined the suddenly active Atlantic Coast Conference, which was gobbling up Big East members at the same time it was trying to keep other conferences from doing the same to its schools. The move would give Notre Dame's other teams, especially basketball, a promotion from their membership in the Big East. The ACC was so eager to lure Notre Dame, it let the Irish remain independent in football, while the Irish agreed to play five ACC football teams a year.

After examining the deal, some observers immediately recognized a potential problem: at some point, Notre Dame's decision could threaten its rivalry with Michigan.

Before the 2012 game, this seemed to be a far-off notion. But the day after Notre Dame's 13-6 victory, Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon pulled the letter out of his coat pocket that Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick had handed him right before kickoff. That's when he learned that, as their agreement allowed, Notre Dame was ending one of the greatest rivalries in sports, canceling the games from 2015 through 2017, with no future matchups scheduled.

By informing Michigan minutes before kickoff, Notre Dame could count 2012 as one of the three games notice the agreement required, giving the Irish two remaining home games to Michigan's one.

So much for Father Walsh's promise to the Wolverines that a "cordial reception would always await them at Notre Dame." The tradition of distrust between the schools' leaders, at least, was alive and well.

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